By Andrey Edemskiy
Part One
Memorie.al / The following material is a paper by Andrey Edemskiy of the Institute for Slavic Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences. The author introduces for the first time, as a previously unpublished archival source, Funds 2, 3, and 10 of the Russian State Archive of Contemporary History. Through these, we can view the Soviet perspective on what was transpiring in relations with Albania during the years 1960-1961. These sources help revise certain myths in historiography and subsequently in the Albanian collective imagination. The myth of the “battle” at the Vlora base must be seen beyond the narrow lens of an Albanian victory and demonstration of force, as, at least according to the documentation in question, there is no evidence that the Soviets ever intended military scenarios in Albania. However, the Russian academic concludes the paper by emphasizing the need to compare sources to better understand what happened.
One thing becomes clear: despite the behavior or mistakes of the Soviets – which are acknowledged as such – Enver Hoxha did not leave the split with the Soviets to chance. He had it as a political goal and provoked it to the end, first by playing in agreement with the Chinese side and secondly by undermining the climate of cooperation. What lies behind this policy remains to be investigated, but, for example, the author’s interpretation of the meeting in Tirana between him [Hoxha], Andropov, and Pospielov suggests that Enver Hoxha felt personally threatened by the Soviets.
He decided to purge the party of any potential pro-Soviet elements and then, in light of the Sino-Soviet friction, to prepare for the escalation of the situation, positioning himself publicly as a determined communist who had caught the Soviets in an ideological error. It is also not well clarified, even with these documents, whether Khrushchev’s rapprochement with the Yugoslavs was a reflex of the rift with Albania or related to a Kremlin policy in the Balkans. The author states that in any case, the rapprochement with Yugoslavia gave Hoxha an alibi, further paving the way for him toward the final break.
The Study by Andrey Edemskiy, from the Institute for Slavic Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences
The extraordinary complex of historical processes in the Balkans in the second half of the 20th century undoubtedly constitutes a promising field of study as many archival documents have become accessible. The Soviet-Albanian conflict in the early 1960s, in all its aspects – ideological, political, and economic – has attracted the attention of researchers since its inception.
Serious progress in researching this problem has been made in recent years as a result of the use of rich documentary material in Albanian from Albanian archives; Albanian researchers have made their valuable contribution to the study of these events. Unfortunately, research results utilizing Soviet documentary materials are not as significant.
Many important documents are still classified, but the documents that are already available from Russian archives make it possible to shed more light on past events. This article is the first attempt to make a further contribution in this direction, alongside the task of identifying signs of an intensification of Soviet-Yugoslav contacts at the same time.
Soviet-Albanian differences that appeared in the mid-50s, due to the Albanian leadership’s disapproval of Khrushchev’s moves toward normalizing relations with Yugoslavia and the condemnation of Stalin’s “cult of personality,” continued to accumulate negative potential. In 1959, the Soviet leader, Khrushchev, did not receive well the assessments for development plans presented to him by the Albanian side during his visit to Albania in May.
Moscow’s efforts to negotiate with Washington on a range of issues of global importance further added to the difficulties in relations between Moscow and Tirana. However, until the summer of 1960, Soviet-Albanian relations continued to develop relatively without friction within the framework of stable and honest economic cooperation and, above all, significant and comprehensive Soviet aid to Albania. The aforementioned differences remained peripheral until the spring-summer of 1960.
As the leader of a small country, Enver Hoxha and his entourage did not consider challenging the Soviets – the great power at the head of the Soviet camp – to be possible. The situation changed in the spring of 1960. In late April, several articles appeared in the Chinese press (later collected and published in a brochure titled: Long Live Leninism!) demonstrating that the Chinese leadership openly, though indirectly, expressed and even declared its disapproval of the Soviet position on the strategy of the Soviet bloc and the world communist movement, regarding a series of issues related to the state’s approach to international problems and their perspective.
Until 1960, Moscow had not responded to these views in any way, believing that bilateral ideological differences should not be discussed publicly in the media, but rather in personal meetings. An opportunity to criticize the Chinese position presented itself, or so it seemed to the Soviet leaders, at the end of June in Bucharest, during a meeting between respective delegations at the Congress of the Romanian Workers’ Party. It had become necessary for the polemic to stop within the Soviet camp.
This was because the cancellation of the Great Powers summit in Paris in mid-May, due to the flight of an American spy plane over the territory of the Soviet Union, seemed to confirm that Chinese warnings were more well-founded than they appeared. The American plane had been shot down by the Soviets, and the admission by the captured pilot that he was on a spying mission seemed to prove Khrushchev wrong in his course for achieving détente with the USA and reducing international tensions.
In early June, Soviet leaders floated the idea of a “meeting of fraternal communist and workers’ parties” in Bucharest (decisions of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, dated June 2 and 7). The initial aim was to discuss the crisis of the international situation, which became awkward following the cancellation of the Paris summit. Only later, on Khrushchev’s personal initiative, was an informative note prepared in Moscow criticizing the views of the Chinese leaders as false and harmful. On June 22, the Soviet leadership decided to distribute this document to the leaders of the communist bloc countries.
And then, in Bucharest, at the impromptu meetings of foreign delegations that had come as guests to the Romanian party Congress, Soviet leader Khrushchev criticized the Chinese leadership. The Albanian delegation was led by the “number three” in the party hierarchy, Hysni Kapo, a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Party of Labor of Albania. He coordinated with Enver Hoxha, who was in Tirana, and unlike any of the other participants, from the beginning of the meeting, was not active in the improvised campaign of condemning the views of the Chinese leadership, as he avoided the obligation of alphabetical order to speak first.
Even such passive behavior by Kapo upset Khrushchev.
The fact that the Albanian leadership had avoided supporting Khrushchev in his criticism of Chinese views in Bucharest did not stop the Prime Minister of the People’s Republic of Albania, Mehmet Shehu, from sending a letter to the Soviet government, requesting 50,000 tons of wheat to be shipped to Albania from August to December of that year, which were needed due to unfavorable weather conditions and an unrealized grain plan.
The letter went unanswered. Only in August, when the Albanian Minister of Trade repeated the same request to the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Trade, highlighting the urgent need for at least 10-15 thousand tons of wheat by September, did Moscow move to fulfill it. According to the decision of September 1, Albania would be supplied with only 10,000 tons of wheat during the period of September-October 1960. It was emphasized that according to the bilateral Trade Agreement, Tirana had to pay for them in goods the following year.
Since the Soviets had no free stock of wheat, it was decided that the request would be met from state reserves, taking into account that the 10,000 tons of wheat delivered would be deducted from the amount planned for export in 1960. The wheat was to be loaded onto Soviet navy ships in Black Sea ports. Another wave of friction in Soviet-Albanian relations appeared in November 1960, during the world meeting of Communist parties held in Moscow.
As can be seen in the archival documents, unlike what happened in Bucharest at the end of June, this time the Albanian delegation came to Moscow with the intention of taking the Chinese side on all issues on which China and the Soviet Union had held different positions in recent months. Their stance had been decided at the Plenum of the Central Committee of the Party of Labor of Albania on November 1, 1960.
The delegation was led by Enver Hoxha, and there was no need to waste time consulting with Tirana, as Kapo had done in Bucharest at the end of June. This change in the Albanian approach has been explained in various ways. According to a long tradition in Western historiography, it was the result of an internal struggle within the party, which ended in late August 1960.
Its victors adopted a determined pro-Beijing line in its ever-growing challenge to Soviet leadership in the communist bloc and the world communist movement. On the other hand, contemporary Albanian historiography has offered a new view of these events, according to which rumors of an internal battle in the party were false, since after Khrushchev’s “secret speech” in February 1956, Enver Hoxha had eliminated all potential opposition, purging many party members and high officials who might potentially adopt Soviet criticism of the “cult of personality” in Albania that year.
Several attempts by the Soviets to sit the Albanians down for an open bilateral discussion to close the open wound went in vain. As soon as Hoxha arrived in Moscow, the Soviets distributed to foreign delegations their response to the September letter of the Chinese Communist Party, in which Albania was described as a tyranny where being a friend of the Soviet Union was dangerous. With such an opening, Enver Hoxha was too irritated to meet with Khrushchev.
Only after the mediation of the French communists did the Albanians agree to meet with Soviet representatives on November 10-11. Hoxha finally met with Khrushchev a day later, on November 12. According to Albanian sources, the Soviet representatives at the first meeting were Mikhail Suslov, Yuri Andropov, Frol Kozlov, Anastas Mikoyan, and Pyotr Pospielov.
The discussion started calmly. In response to the Soviets’ question: “What do you want in exchange for an improvement of your relations with us,” Hoxha reminded them of all the incidents that had occurred during the summer, such as the Soviet attempt to undermine the unity of the Albanian leadership, support for political dissidents, and incidents between Albanian and Soviet sailors and officers at the naval base in Vlora.
Hoxha put forward a series of demands so that such incidents would be avoided in the future, but the Soviet side rejected them, pointing out an anti-Soviet sentiment that had spread in Albania. During the discussion, Hoxha argued that there had been earlier disagreements between the two sides, such as those on Yugoslavia and other issues, and that all stemmed from the Soviet side.
Khrushchev seemed surprised: “It is news to me that we have had different views on this matter. I hear it for the first time… The Yugoslav problem, which you consider a topic between us, we can leave aside for the moment. This is not a matter of principle.” But Hoxha insisted that the issue was indeed one of principle and that Khrushchev had refused to understand this for a long time. The Albanian leader accused Khrushchev of deteriorating relations after the Bucharest meeting.
But Khrushchev raised the suspicion that “it seems you were not in agreement with us even before Bucharest.” Then they exchanged heavy accusations regarding possible Soviet support for recently purged Albanian leaders who had sympathy for the Soviet Union. Khrushchev attacked his interlocutors “for expelling a powerful woman like Belishova in a Stalinist manner.”
At that moment, the already heated discussion moved to the issue of the Vlora naval base, regarding accusations of Soviet officers and sailors confronting Albanians on their territory. In a polemical climate, Khrushchev mentioned the possibility of removing this military installation from Albania. The discussion finally closed when Khrushchev compared Enver Hoxha’s manner of discussion to that of the British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, who “also wanted to speak to me in this way.”
Mikoyan added that “Hoxha speaks worse than Macmillan.” The Albanian delegation got up and left. As he was leaving, Mehmet Shehu’s last words to Khrushchev were that “Albania will remain forever faithful to the Soviet Union and a member of the socialist camp.”
It is clear that at the center of efforts to close the initial rift were differences in mentality, aggravated by a painful perception by representatives of a small country of the ease with which their interlocutors, as representatives of a great power, interpreted their statements. On the other hand, the conversation went as if the Albanian side had been waiting to find a reason to cut ties abruptly. And this actually happened as soon as an opportunity was presented by the Soviets.
Now researchers are aware of the mood with which the Albanians arrived in Moscow after the plenary session of the PLA on November 1, and it is clear that the liberties the Soviets took during the meeting of November 12 played in favor of the Albanians. On November 14, aware of their mistake and in an effort to fix it, the Soviet leadership sent a short letter to the Albanian leaders, addressed to the “delegation of the Party of Labor of Albania” and calling them “comrades.” In the letter, the Soviets proposed “continuing the meeting between representatives of our parties at a convenient time for your delegation.”
They also expressed regret that the Albanian side had interrupted the meeting, trying to assure that “none of us had or has any intention to insult any of the Albanian representatives.” They expressed regret that the Albanians had left too quickly to hear the last part of the interrupted sentence (“they should have heard the end of the sentence”) “the interrupted and misinterpreted sentence,” “despite the sincere desire of the Soviet delegation to continue” the talks.
The Soviets proposed that the meeting continue either in the previous composition or between “authorized representatives” of both central committees, to discuss matters of interest to “both parties.” The Soviet side demonstrated patience, promising to wait until “the Albanian comrades are ready to re-establish contacts” with representatives of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
At the same time, the Soviets expressed their readiness for a meeting at the level of prime ministers, drawing attention to “some issues that concern our two states and need to be discussed,” proposing in fact a meeting at any level “that the Albanian comrades will find appropriate.” Researchers have not yet clarified whether the Soviets managed to send this letter to the PLA delegation that same day (November 14), as proposed by Yuri Andropov who was responsible for compiling it. / Memorie.al
To be continued in the next issue
